I couldn't find any thing else like this on dhammawheel, but I have seen it on other forums, so I decided to start a place for members to post bits of original poetry or prose. I put it in the lounge due to the fact that not all poems may necessarily be dhamma related, but mods please move this wherever most appropriate.

I'd like to start with one that's a bit inspired by samsara.-----------------------------"Circles"

Floating lights up in the night,a Heaven filled with Earth's delights.We dine and die in aging fields,dreams lit dim by sunshine.

The only sight one ever seesa straight path through the rocks and treesrunning still inside the wheel the dancing thoughts of revelry.

Pulled into the lion's denof mortal fears and mortal menthis beautiful impermanence is just about to end. ------------------------------------

Thanks for posting! I hope more people have things they have written, I'd love to read them.

Another one:---------------

Clouds partscreaminginto painted framesthe beggars veins slowly losing their grip with realityin the act of the brush leaving the canvas madlydraped over the eyes masquerading ascolorsWe spend our nights as actorspretending to be othersall thesechildish games inside raindrops falling crawling onto embers to silence the callingof meeting the ground and preparing to scatter a mess in a world where humans don't matter.-----------------------------

In the window of the cafeI see haunting eyes as deep as the deepest oceanstaring back at me.Their piercing gazeunfolding into tomorrow,reflecting back beginningless time.Portals revealing bits and pieces,glimpses and hopes,of things yet to come,that have already happened before.Peepholes into the tragic realityof my existential ouroboros.Drifting ceaselessly,like a wayward vessel hoping to find the safety of the other shore,I sail down the river of forgetfulnessand crashover and over againinto the rocky shores of beauty:the siren song of desireforever leading meastray.

(This haiku was inspired by a picture of Ajahn Thanissaro and Phra Mike I took the last time they were in Portland. The picture is apparently too big to upload here, but you can check it out here if so inclined.)

Sitting at Bare Bonesalone, in the brisk, winter afternoon.Coffee to my right,Dostoyevsky lurking around somewhere in my bagresting comfortably in the other chair.Ginger makes an occasional appearance from the back,chatting up the customersand intimidating themwith her tattoos and handsome features.Short, black hairmatching her black, button-up shirt.Less goth and more post-punk culinary, if you can imagine that.Thoughts turn to daggerslike the tattoos on her arm,piercing through the melancholy of the momentand into the unknown future.Hope and fear, love and loss;life is such a holy and tragic thing.Souls forming and taking shape,like Fiddler Crab larvaecarried upon the currents of choices, mistakes,and circumstances beyond their control.Washed far out to seato sink or swim,or be eaten;the lucky ones being washed back into shore.Sometimes I feel like a leafcaught in the wakeof souls bigger and more important than I.I rise and falland am pushed aside by their passing.Always in a hurrywith no place to go.But at least they'll get there on time.

Beneath his brow, a boney mantle, behind which hid his pride.But when his mind did turn within, from this it could not hide:That where it had expected wealth it found instead that pride had lied;amassed were not the gems of virtue, but many panes of polished glass.And not having any wealth to take, he now lies beneath the grass.

The Buddha Gautama said that there are one thousand and one buddhas that will come into our world during the superior aeon. Among those, three buddhas have already come, so Gautama Buddha is the fourth. The next, or the fifth buddha, is known as Maitreya in Sanskrit, which means “loving-kindness.” Buddha Gautama spoke a lot about this future buddha in the Mahayana Maitreya Sutra. He said that Maitreya would realize buddhahood solely through the practice of loving-kindness.

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Loving-kindness comes from the heartNobody forces it to flowJust like rain from heavenPretty much like beautiful white snow

Hatred is like poisonAnger ruins your mindIf you collect hatred and angerYou'll be alone when you die